


Reworking

by tonytonesphoneroo5000



Category: Inkheart (2008), Tintenwelt-Trilogie | Inkheart Trilogy - Cornelia Funke
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 09:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14912780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tonytonesphoneroo5000/pseuds/tonytonesphoneroo5000
Summary: Violante loved Cosimo. She had loved him with his beautiful face, the impossibility of it, so different from her own, plain self. She had loved him when he returned from the hunt, grinning, or the few times he slept beside her, his face rivalling the moon for its glow. She had even loved him as he loved Brianna, bringing the Fire-Dancer’s daughter to his personal chambers. Now Cosimo is dead, and so is Violante’s father. Like her birthmark, a shadow has disappeared from the world. And so Violante has found someone new to love.





	Reworking

**Author's Note:**

> ummmm i liked violante a lot and also i liked brianna and thought she could do better than the fuckin....cosimo dude and i like my gays as well. and wanted jacopo to have a happier ending. also i just watched the inkheart movie and DON'T WATCH IT. very bad DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT yada yada

Violante loved Cosimo. She had loved him with his beautiful face, the impossibility of it, so different from her own, plain self. She had loved him when he returned from the hunt, grinning, or the few times he slept beside her, his face rivalling the moon for its glow. She had even loved him as he loved Brianna, bringing the Fire-Dancer’s daughter to his personal chambers. Now Cosimo is dead, and so is Violante’s father. Like her birthmark, a shadow has disappeared from the world. And so Violante has found someone new to love.

Drumming her fingers against the throne, Violante looks down at her son. Jacopo seems to enjoy the throne room; it reminds him of how important he and his mother have become, and sometimes Violante allows him to sit on the throne, try on the great crown that used to belong to that old fool, the Laughing Prince. He’s even begun to help her with the people’s troubles, bringing surprisingly kind solutions to the table; ever since he began to worship the Bluejay and Dustfinger, her son has started changing into a boy she could love.

She runs her fingers through his dark hair, which he has grown out to match Dustfinger’s. Like his mother, Jacopo loves the strolling players. They sing their songs in the courtyard every day now, their acrobats traipsing on gossamer threads across the sky. Even as Violante is thinking this, her favorite player comes in through the wide doors that enter into her throne room. They are never locked. They bring a burst of sound with them, of happy voices and song, cut off as soon as the doors swing shut. 

Violante’s favorite player strides towards her, his head held as high as if he’s actually the prince he claims to be. His bear ambles along at his side, and as always, Violante is amazed at its size. The Black Prince had let her touch it, once, and she had been almost surprised that it didn’t dissolve in smoke like the Night Mare some accuse it of being.

“Violante!” the Prince exclaims; she long ago gave him the right to say her true name. They are allies, and he is a fellow royal, of a sort. Violante knows more than most that royal blood doesn’t mean regal actions. 

“Do you bring me news?” she asks as he stands at the bottom of the stairs before her throne, chucking Jacopo once under the chin. Jacopo accepts it with a smile that would never have graced his face when her father was alive.

“Your stepmother-” How she hates when he calls Adderhead’s last wife, the mother of his son, that! That simpering child, younger even than Violante herself! They’ve never met. She stays in the Castle of the Night with her son, among the fire-raisers, and, Violante is sure, never mourns the Adderhead. “Your stepmother,” the Prince continues, “has done nothing of note lately, besides decrease production in the silver mines.” 

Violante waves this aside, eager as a child for the news she’s been waiting for. “Have you been to him? Have you talked to the Fire-Dancer?” 

The Prince smiles, white and wide enough that even she can see it, so perhaps the news is good. Violante is very rarely positive, but in this…Her hopes rest on it.

“I may have seen Dustfinger,” the Prince says, teasing her. Violante is not nearly so cruel as her father, or so clueless as the Laughing Prince. Her people don’t fear her. Women bring her their children to be blessed. The Black Prince himself is willing to laugh in her presence, even as Violante’s heart climbs into her throat. What happened to the cool woman who plotted her father’s death, she wonders. She was melted in a heart of fire. 

“ _And?_ ” 

The Prince leans into his bear’s thick ruff, as comfortably as a child into its father’s hip. “And he says yes.”

Violante has the rest of the day to sit here; she has to listen to tax complaints, to accusations against the guards, to the pleas of mothers with sick children. But she wants to leave her throne, and run upstairs, joyous as a child, and shout with glee. Instead, she allows herself one thin smile. “I am glad to hear it.” 

Grinning, seeing right through her, the Black Prince bows and leaves the way he came, his bear trailing on behind him.  
+  
+  
It is many hours before Violante is able to return to her rooms. She must handle every complaint that comes her way, and have dinner, and go over more paperwork, and sneak in some time to read. She must put Jacopo to bed; the Bluejay had recommended it, during one of his very rare visits to the castle. 

“I still put Meggie to bed sometimes,” he had admitted, looking off towards where his beautiful, golden-haired daughter was chatting with a besotted castle guard. How like her mother she looked! Violante no longer loves the Bluejay, but she could remember why she did, when he smiled down at her like that. Gentle, nothing like the robber from the tales who kills men as easily as breaking a glass man’s limbs. “And I used to read to her.” 

“Why did you stop?” Violante had asked. 

She knows so few parents with happy children, and she trusts the Bluejay. His daughter adores him. Violante wants…She wants to end the cycle of misery that seems to stretch back on both sides of her family for generations. She wants Jacopo to be a king the people can love. A king _she_ can be proud of. 

The Bluejay’s face had gone through a range of emotions; guilt, fear, sadness, and a sort of bitter laughter. “She reads as well as me now,” was all he said, but Violante reads to Jacopo herself. On nights when he puts his head in her lap and she strokes his hair, reading to him of the Bluejay til he falls asleep, Violante is learning what it means to love. 

Once she’s sure Jacopo won’t awake, she goes to her own bedchamber, where the torches are turned down low, and Brianna’s hair shines red gold in the dim light. She sits up in bed as Violante approaches, holding the quilt to her bare chest. Her alabaster shoulders are peppered with freckles that Violante has kissed, one by one. Who knew, that once the Bluejay and Cosimo had left them, that Violante would find solace in Brianna’s touch, in her kisses as hot as her father’s fire? That Violante would take Brianna into her bed and keep her there. 

“You’re late,” Brianna says, sleep warming the edges of each vowel.

“Jacopo,” is all Violante says as she shimmies her dress from her shoulders, til she’s only in her underclothes and she can slip into bed where it’s warm from Brianna’s body, Violante curling her cold toes against her lover’s shins. Brianna’s eyes are already slipping closed, her fingers around Violante’s arm. She nudges Brianna awake. “I have news.”

“Hm.” Brianna’s beautiful mouth turns up in a smile. As beautiful as the White Women are supposed to be, and she fills Violante as full of longing. 

“The Prince has been to see your father. He has given me permission to marry you,” Violante says, as grandly as if she’s announcing it before the court. Which she will. Tomorrow. For now, there’s the glow in Brianna’s eyes and the kisses she presses all over Violante’s face, as hot as the fire-elves but far more welcome. “Even the Fire-Dancer can’t refuse a queen,” Violante whispers into Brianna’s mouth, and claims the woman who will be her wife for her own.

**Author's Note:**

> also of course dustfinger COULD have refused her but violante really does love brianna. so. also also people are totally fine with gays in this world because...i say so?? and nothing in the story suggests otherwise


End file.
